I guess the logic here is: If I love this project, I should renew my JetBrains subscription...so that they can keep having money to fix bugs in their IDE...so that you can keep reverse engineering it?
I know this exact comment is probably becoming tedious on HN, but it's very rare that a tool I pay for is so bad I'll jump ship for 0.1.0 alpha if a clone.
Yeah, it's a Tauri app, which makes the claim in the README about it being a native app also rather a lie.
Did Tauri ever figure out how to run performantly on Linux, or are they still using webkit2gtk? They were looking at integrating Servo last time I checked, but I have no clue how far they've progressed with that since.
The author's comment appears AI generated (or at very least heavily edited) and (imo) should be taken with a grain of salt. Very probable they don't know or/and thought of any of the usability/maintenance/performance considerations/costs mentioned within and they just blindly accepted whatever Claude generated.
If you do a lookup at WIPO brands database you can find "intellij" and "intellij idea" owned by Jetbrains s.r.o. but not "idea" alone.
Based on this only a judge can decide if it is close enough to be an infringement and could misled customers. Given the readme days eplicitely says it is not the same IDE as Intellij IDEA I would say it would be hard to convince someone customers are misled.
Interesting project. It seems it uses CodeMirror [1] in the Tauri frontend (60% of total code is typescript), but uses rust in the backend (30%). Surprising to see that Tauri is apparently good enough for the three platforms it needs to support (or it uses a lot of hacks, I don't know). The advertised memory reduction is remarkable as I expected a full web view to be a bit memory heavy. Not sure how this IDE keeps up with large documents or a lot of opened views though.
Even at 60 MB, assuming the app is on the order of "hello world", that's almost two orders of magnitude more overhead than Win32 on my x64 Windows 11 box (tested with C, assume Rust with the windows crate would be similar).
The only value adding vibe coded software I've used so far has been clones of existing software that can then be used for free since now it's in a legal greyzone and you can pretend it's not piracy...all thanks to subsidized subscriptions enabled by companies who are in part the publishers of the software that is being cloned. What a time to be alive...
Where Rust scores over Go is not so much on the speed but memory usage. As memory is becoming expensive (and likely to stay for sometime), the appeal for Rust increases.
The large disk space usage for Rust is much more solvable than speed-up in Rust compilation as long as crate remains the lowest compilation unit.
Barring this, even for AI based development Golang is much better language. But Rust's long term payoff is too good at this point.
Also try Lapce! In my experience somehow starts noticably faster even than Zed. Also implemented in Rust but different GUI approach. Both support LSPs.
How did Hacker News become the place where you announce a hack and all the comments are like "I don't like this because I feel it might be in a legal gray area"?
It didn’t, there are a few (shallow) replies which are downvoted to the bottom of the page. But perhaps when you looked at the page these comments were new and you were just unlucky.
The discussion about IP with these reverse engineered products in itself is interesting, although a bit repetitive with new clones every day.
>but does it makes any sense without feature parity?
The entire project makes no sense. Names itself Open when IDEA is already open, says built in Rust when 60% is TS, says it's native app when it's a web app with a native connection, clueless benchmarks, made by vibe coders who don't even use/need an IDE, ...
Uses Typescript for the most part, not much better than Electron stuff, cannot use the InteliJ plugins powered by the JVM, it is vibe coded, no thanks.
But maybe a Lindy effect measuring effort rather than time (as a signal of commitment). Git commits no longer mean effort since the computer can just make commits on its own.
Still, one day I expect to see a fully vibe coded project and to see that the guy has been maintaining it for ten years. That will probably give me a different impression.
We just don't know yet which of today's projects will survive, and which will be rapidly abandoned.
Calling it "OpenIDEA" is a bit misleading. IntellijIDEA is free and open source (Apache 2.0) since 2009. Paid subscription basically gives you extra plugins. And as others pointed out, saying that it was rebuilt in Rust is at least as much misleading: the code processing is still standalone LSP processes, frontend is WebView with typescript, only Tauri glue code is Rust. And that in turn makes me extremely skeptical about claimed memory usage! Consider that you must compare idea.exe against combo of WebView (on windows: chromium edge) + LSP (for Java, likely Eclipse LSP, at least that's what VSCode traditionally uses for Java). Is it realistic to fit that in claimed 169 MB?
Correction: Rust is more than just Tauri glue code (https://github.com/l0ng-ai/openidea/issues/568#issuecomment-...). But considering that in an IDE the two performance critical parts are code processing (LSP) and frontend, I wonder how much benefit can you really get by making everything except of them in Rust.
Overall I actually agree that VSCode has proven that making responsive web based frontends is absolutely viable for the IDE, if you accept startup latency, size and memory use of CEF / Electron. And on Windows and macOS, system WebView may be sufficiently compatible (not on Linux anytime soon!), and they significantly amortize all of those downsides.
Except people forget that only works for VScode, thanks to the multiple processes architecture with enough components written in a mix of C++, Rust, .NET and Java, with the terminal using WebGL.
It is quite telling how many clueless folks brag about Java support in VSCode, without understanding that depending on the plugin, they are either running Eclipse or Netbeans headless.
Yeah, Electron works, provided one creates a whole circus around its performance issues.
Eclipse was an ide that needed a supercomputer to run on an early version of Java when it first came out.
It was interesting, but sluggish.
Jetbrains took advantage of it for profit and eventually adobe'd the business model, although granted they made a lot of improvements for various languages.
I have no pity for companies who made money off open source and lose it the same way. But this looks like a fight between fighters past their prime.
Betelbuddy | a day ago
I guess the logic here is: If I love this project, I should renew my JetBrains subscription...so that they can keep having money to fix bugs in their IDE...so that you can keep reverse engineering it?
Am I seeing this right?
rustyhancock | a day ago
Which isn't the vibe I want from my editor.
I know this exact comment is probably becoming tedious on HN, but it's very rare that a tool I pay for is so bad I'll jump ship for 0.1.0 alpha if a clone.
Long story short, I'm keeping my sub.
imtringued | a day ago
jarym | a day ago
philipallstar | 23 hours ago
Black616Angel | a day ago
looks inside
60% Typescript
Yeah, didn't think so...
Deukhoofd | 23 hours ago
Did Tauri ever figure out how to run performantly on Linux, or are they still using webkit2gtk? They were looking at integrating Servo last time I checked, but I have no clue how far they've progressed with that since.
resonious | 22 hours ago
bendowlingdev | 23 hours ago
aenis | 23 hours ago
boredstranger | 23 hours ago
Stitch4223 | 23 hours ago
Building consistent frontends for all platforms isn’t easy in rust, so they use web standards for that.
forgotpwd16 | 19 hours ago
pjmlp | 18 hours ago
rbr94 | 19 hours ago
Rust at home:
outloudvi | a day ago
alex_smart | 23 hours ago
prmoustache | 23 hours ago
If you do a lookup at WIPO brands database you can find "intellij" and "intellij idea" owned by Jetbrains s.r.o. but not "idea" alone.
Based on this only a judge can decide if it is close enough to be an infringement and could misled customers. Given the readme days eplicitely says it is not the same IDE as Intellij IDEA I would say it would be hard to convince someone customers are misled.
exceptione | 23 hours ago
___
1. The editor implementation is here: <https://github.com/l0ng-ai/openidea/blob/main/src/editor/cor...>
ThouYS | 23 hours ago
gen2brain | 22 hours ago
jasomill | 15 hours ago
pjmlp | 11 minutes ago
ChocolateGod | 23 hours ago
mqus | 23 hours ago
> completion from language servers
That's exactly the thing that I like about idea: It's better than that.
jttnr | 23 hours ago
IDEA is much smarter than what a language server alone offers.
neutronicus | 23 hours ago
ReDress | 23 hours ago
I bet it's a lot of fun being a Rust programmer / coder.
armchairhacker | 23 hours ago
borzi | 23 hours ago
devnull3 | 23 hours ago
The large disk space usage for Rust is much more solvable than speed-up in Rust compilation as long as crate remains the lowest compilation unit.
Barring this, even for AI based development Golang is much better language. But Rust's long term payoff is too good at this point.
pjmlp | 23 hours ago
ramon156 | 23 hours ago
avallach | 19 hours ago
getnormality | 23 hours ago
Stitch4223 | 23 hours ago
The discussion about IP with these reverse engineered products in itself is interesting, although a bit repetitive with new clones every day.
elashri | 22 hours ago
Since when cloning an open source project became a "hack" ?
verdverm | 19 hours ago
atrokhymchuk | 23 hours ago
In the benchmark[1] the cpu, memory and quit time (!) are compared, but does it makes any sense without feature parity?
[0]: https://github.com/jetbrains/intellij-community
[1]: https://github.com/l0ng-ai/openidea#benchmark
zb3 | 23 hours ago
forgotpwd16 | 19 hours ago
The entire project makes no sense. Names itself Open when IDEA is already open, says built in Rust when 60% is TS, says it's native app when it's a web app with a native connection, clueless benchmarks, made by vibe coders who don't even use/need an IDE, ...
pjmlp | 23 hours ago
andai | 23 hours ago
I hear this a lot, the argument usually being "they didn't care to put effort into it, so it probably won't be maintained.
That's a reasonable assumption. It's basically the Lindy effect: The longer something has existed, the longer it probably will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
But maybe a Lindy effect measuring effort rather than time (as a signal of commitment). Git commits no longer mean effort since the computer can just make commits on its own.
Still, one day I expect to see a fully vibe coded project and to see that the guy has been maintaining it for ten years. That will probably give me a different impression.
We just don't know yet which of today's projects will survive, and which will be rapidly abandoned.
lazystone | 22 hours ago
pjmlp | 21 hours ago
It is still the output of a replicator machine, regardless of text, images, video or code.
bihevi0 | 23 hours ago
vrotaru | 23 hours ago
I'm not sure exactly why this came to mind. Vibes?
avallach | 23 hours ago
avallach | 21 hours ago
Overall I actually agree that VSCode has proven that making responsive web based frontends is absolutely viable for the IDE, if you accept startup latency, size and memory use of CEF / Electron. And on Windows and macOS, system WebView may be sufficiently compatible (not on Linux anytime soon!), and they significantly amortize all of those downsides.
pjmlp | 14 minutes ago
It is quite telling how many clueless folks brag about Java support in VSCode, without understanding that depending on the plugin, they are either running Eclipse or Netbeans headless.
Yeah, Electron works, provided one creates a whole circus around its performance issues.
pcblues | 23 hours ago
It was interesting, but sluggish.
Jetbrains took advantage of it for profit and eventually adobe'd the business model, although granted they made a lot of improvements for various languages.
I have no pity for companies who made money off open source and lose it the same way. But this looks like a fight between fighters past their prime.
surgical_fire | 20 hours ago
cosmotic | 17 hours ago
7e | 16 hours ago
invalidname | 16 hours ago